I often get caught up in what if. What if I lose my job? What if I get cancer again? What if today is the day everyone figures out I don’t know what in the hell I am doing most of the time?
This past week, I had dinner with a friend, and she told me about a book she’d read. What I took away from our conversation is that when we do our work in and with and for the world, what if we are pulled to do it by a sense of pleasure, rather than pushed to do it out of a sense of obligation, anger, or righteousness? Work, then, becomes a celebration. A dance with what you love.
I can’t stop thinking about this idea. In a way, it’s anathema to me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a Calvin running my life.
John Calvin helped create the Protestant Work Ethic—life is work and work is discipline and discipline is the deep, unarguable knowledge that you aren’t worthy if you don’t do more and do better. This is the voice telling you work is toil, so get your ass out of bed and moil your way through your day. Every damn day.
My Calvin is a dour, shriveled little man who doesn’t even have to use a whip to goad me—all he has to do is threaten to give me that look of disappointment.
Now that I think about it, this Calvin is at the root of most of my what if’s. He catastrophizes everything, because that’s how he keeps his power. He feeds me fear and worst-case scenarios to keep me in line. I do his bidding, because I have believed for a very long time that this is the best way to stop my world from crumbling.
But of course, it doesn’t. My world crumbled, and the harder I tried, the worse it got.
After my conversation with my friend, I decided to wrest the bullhorn away from Calvin. I want to quit amplifying his voice that is filled with threats and fears.
I’d rather live like there’s a small red thread in my life. It promises to lead me on all manner of adventures, if I’m willing to follow it. To trust the gentle pulls in my life and say yes.
This way.
This way.
This.
Which is something else I stumbled upon this week. I learned that in Jewish thought, God is sometimes referred to as zot, which in Hebrew simply means “this.”
This moment. This chair. This weather. This branch coated in hoarfrost. This breath. This fight. This cause for celebration. This goodbye.
What I love about this is God isn’t out there, some Thing to be found, hidden and distant. If God is This, then This is everything, right here, and it waits to be found, waits to encountered. This invites us with a different kind of what if.
What if we live and risk and love? What if we reach and fall and rise? What if we see the holy in each and every moment, in each and every person? What if we follow This with curiosity and wonder?
Why, who knows what might happen?
This. Is. Wonder-full. I needed it today… and everyday.
yes to it all.